“Say goodbye to your free time once they're up and moving!”
Goodbye free time of the newborn stage! Hello to the new nature of free time when it comes to embarking on the toddler years. It’s different, it seems imagined, but it’s there! Real talk. Here’s the best advice I’ve received so far when it comes to adapting to your ever growing child. “Raising a child can be tough because it’s always changing. The newborn stage is [usually] the easier stage because the baby’s not moving much on their own but once you get used to that system, it changes again!” By which we mean the toddler years. You celebrate that emotional first birthday, see how much the little one’s already grown, which makes you fathom how much of the world they’re started taking in.
And suddenly those little babies are desperate to become mobile.
My loved ones weren’t kidding when they said the toddler years are different. Everything changes and suddenly the routine schedule you were on transforms into something even more demanding. A nap possibly drops, the little one has to get onto solid foods and make use of their hands, more cleanup precedes every step of your daily schedule—you’ve become even more busy! How is it done? How can it be done? How can a mom have time for anything else?
Well, I’ve done it. Since my becoming a first time mom, I’ve made it past the first year and my newborn is now officially a toddler! The adorable babbles eventually manifested my little one’s first word—mama much to my excitement—and the occasional other words he once in a blue moon repeats whenever he fancies. Rolling onto his belly evolved to quick sprints on all fours followed by cruising along the furniture on two legs and here and there he stands on his own. Soon, so soon I’ll have a little human who walks about on those chubby little feet without having to clutch my hands first.
It’s all a dream! A dream that also comes with the inevitable waking up. My little explorer has officially burst forth from our playtimes limited to the nursery or the living room playpen and now he’s onto exploring every—baby-proofed—room he can crawl his way into.
And every mess he can get himself into.
Where am I, you ask? Chasing after him constantly, being vigilant of the potential danger no amount of baby-proofing can totally nullify. Did I also mention we’re also following his daily schedules of snack, play and nap time as we go?
BOY the clock runs so fast in the day when you’re behind a toddler who’s active as a cross-country athlete! To say nothing of the time away from both my computer and laptop I spend tending to my tot. Precious nap time I can spend lying down with my laptop on my chest gets interrupted by sleep regression. Teething days where my little one can’t bring himself to eat means more time soothing while the bottle warms at the expense of outlining projects in my journal. Even normal days result in evening writing time getting skipped because, let’s face it, by the time I’m sitting down at the keyboard I’m spent.
Writing with a toddler in the home is A LOT, but still doable. It’ll take a degree of acceptance that moments to write may be fleeting at best, but it is possible. It’s inevitable, even, if you organize yourself just right. Trick is to take inventory of what support you do and do not have, what your daily schedule roughly looks like with your little one and maximizing the opportunities when they present themselves.
“Take inventory of what now?”
This was the hardest step for me at first because it was A LOT to have to organize. Let’s break it down:
What support do you have?
What does your daily schedule look like when it comes to you and your little one?
What opportunities to write could you be missing in your day-to-day?
Finding the answers to all three are integral to reassessing your writing schedule around a toddler’s. As with adapting to life with a newborn this took time, dedication and plenty of effort. Also, it took me months to get into a semblance of a flow, so don’t be ashamed if your new routine isn’t shaping out as quickly as you want. That’s the nature of experimentation. You try and try again until it starts to all fit together.
What support do you have?
It’s not a contest, just a simple fact that we’re all going to have different perimeters when it comes to our at home life. Especially in today's economy. I’m a stay at home mom. I have been since my little one was born, but because the toddler years have started off so very challenging for me, I’ve taken a step back from my freelance work until further notice. Too often I found myself sweating under the collar from obvious delays when it came to completing work in a timely fashion, narrowly managing to meet my client’s deadlines all while skipping meals, sleep and being all together stretched thin. I was in a situation that was anything but sustainable.
Daycare isn’t an option for me. Despite this, I’m very fortunate. I have my husband to thank for that. I can afford to take a break from my income and become a stay at home mom that doesn’t have to worry about work. Twice a week I’m blessed with the support of both my mother and my wonderful in-laws who are all too eager to come over and play with my son while I can take a step back and get other things done.
My husband and I also have a deal. When he’s home from work, he tags in to relieve me. I’ve been with our toddler all day and I need to tag out. On the weekends, since I’m at the forefront of childcare all week, I get my mother’s day out (or weekend out since that includes Saturday and Sunday). Mother’s day out, when it comes to my writing, is me packing up my laptop and briefcase and heading to my favorite café for the better part of the day to get some work done. Other times mother’s day out turns into mother’s day in when I don’t have anywhere I want to go and prefer to lock myself in my office and work undisturbed. I couldn’t do any of this without the support of my husband, and because of this arrangement I make it to critique group every week—even if I’m bringing pages every other week.
If daycare is an option for you, chances are that’s less of a luxury and more of a necessity because you’re employed regardless of whether you work from home or head to the office every day. I commend you for your ability to head to work and care for your little one, you’re doing amazing! I literally had to quit one to entirely do the other. Go over what support you have when your little one gets home. Do you have additional care for the little one in the evenings from, say, your spouse when they get home from work? Are daycare days daily or weekly? Do you have in-laws or parents that come by for the day to help with your toddler? If not, could this be arranged? Important questions to answer regardless of whether or not you have daycare services.
What does your daily schedule look like when it comes to you and your little one?
Here’s where we preface before discussing how we find opportunities in the day to write. By now, as mothers, we’ve gone through the newborn phase of developing a schedule that covers changing, feeding and nap times for our baby. Now that we’ve begun the toddler years, the schedule evolves rather than dissolves. I mentioned this in my previous post, Postpartum + Drafting--The Experimental Nature of Writing With a Newborn, that organizing my schedule was next to impossible without a scheduler app. I use Google Calendar programmed to my phone to constantly ding at me about what time ranges we’re at. Example: lunch time for my son is between 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. Why? Because while most of the time my son gobbles down his lunch at 11:00 am on the dot, some times oddball days come where he’s not interested in food until 12:45pm. Following every lunch time is half of his daily sixteen ounces of whole milk and his big afternoon nap after. Then, a timer or two later when he’s down, the writing time begins.
More to the point, I’ve written out what my schedule roughly looks like on a day to day basis. This was instrumental in pinpointing where the moments to write could be. Whether you lean more towards tech savvy solutions or prefer to scratch down your day-to-day on paper, log how a day tends to look. The more aware you are of the times that come that you’re able to manage being idle, the more you’ll have time to find to write.
What opportunities to write could you be missing in your day-to-day?
Here’s another area where I got lucky with my little one. He took very quickly to his pediatrician’s suggestion of breakfast, lunch and dinner with two snack times in between. I was also immensely lucky that until thirteen months, my son didn’t drop a single one of his three naps. I’m past that now, of course, and we’ve dropped down to one morning nap and one afternoon nap—each one ranging between an hour and two hours. Bonus points whenever we hit growth spurts. That third nap either magically comes back in the evening or his two naps extends to almost four hours long!
If nap times are sacred to you because you’re managing to sleep when your toddler does, don’t sacrifice that. Sleep is important and if you’re able to manage rest, do so. I on the other hand am a mom that most of the time can’t match my little one’s nap schedule, so I don’t. Instead I’ll cozy up and scratch notes in my journal or type away on the laptop in my little nook with a nice cup of calming tea. A wonderful experience usually limited to his afternoon nap—that’s the only one that will ever prove the longest. The mornings are reserved for reading, which gets me in a creative mood, and journaling. Coordinating nap times have been key for me. Morning nap-creative prep, afternoon nap-writing sprints and repeat. This of course, is for the days I’m on my own with no backup.
On the days my mom or parents-in-laws (yes I’m blessed they come together) arrive to help me, the real work gets started. The times vary depending on their schedules that day, but for the most part I get a day of guaranteed lunch and at least two hours of solid writing while they’re there. An additional two to four hours when they’ve gone leaving my exhausted son in their wake. He’s napping from an extra energy-spent playdate and mom reaps the benefits of extended nap time writing.
If I have any energy left over, the evening when my husband comes home from work to tag in for his turn with our child becomes one more opportunity for me to write. This, I will admit, is the opportunity to write that often gets skipped. Even on days when I do get backup. Does it come with the immeasurable guilt of not making use of precious time to write? Yes. Does it keep happening anyway? Oh, yeah. Sometimes having the opportunity to write doesn’t mean I’ll always take it because I’m exhausted from the day. As stated in my previous post, you’ll just have to forgive yourself when this happens. Because it happens a lot.
Because writing with a toddler is a lot.
Adjusting to this stage has been one of the most challenging phases I’ve had to deal with so far. So much so that I had to make a pretty hefty decision or two along the way. Tough decisions, so much effort to reorganize myself so I could manage time for my writing and I’m only just now starting to see results. That’s how I’ve even managed to finally write this blog post! Writing with a toddler can be hard, but it is manageable. Adapting to it will prove more difficult and won’t produce immediate results—as my experience has shown me thus far—but it is worth it. Making it to my critique group every week while managing a habit of bi-weekly pages, keeping my writing on the brain despite not always having the time to write and having to put everything on hold for my little one at the drop of a hat—I’m proud of myself for all of it. You should be too if you’re even trying to figure out where to find time to write. It can be done, slowly but surely and I’ll be rooting for you every step of the way, fellow mama!
Until next time, from the Writing Nook!
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